SCU Engineering vs USC, UCD, Cal Poly, LMU

thumper1
Sat, 19 Dec 2009 12:09:54 +0000

My daughter is a senior engineering major at SCU. She will receive two bachelors degrees…or at the very least a double major…bioengineering and biology. She feels the engineering programs have met her needs very nicely. In particular, she notes the accessibility of the professors…it’s terrific. She has found them to be wonderful mentors and particularly likes her advisor. She is an “atypical” engineering major when compared to the above poster. She does NOT spend all of her time with other engineering majors (perhaps because she also spends significant time with the biology majors!). She says it is not very likely she would have been able to complete both of these majors at most other schools in 4 years. AND she didn’t declare her major in engineering until sophomore year (actually enrolled at SCU as undeclared arts and sciences…but DID take the courses necessary to fulfill the engineering degree even as a freshman).

SCU is not a “tech school” like Cal Tech or MIT or RPI or RIT. It is a masters university. And because it is a Jesuit school, there are still core courses outside of engineering that students must take. Our kid LIKED this variety in the coursework as it broke up the engineering “stuff”. She was also required to take some courses that were out of her “comfort zone” and found them to be quite interesting and good.

She agrees that an engineering (or biology) major will be sufficiently challenged at SCU.